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Sunday, October 18, 2015

2 x OHW AARs: Scenario 8: Melee

Much thanks to gamer pal extraordinaire B-Ham who is always a pleasure to work with. As a playtester, I can always rely on him to approach the game with focus and consider it on its merits, both scenario and mechanics, and worry less about how will the participants play or the results of the immediate game. That's not always easy to find! So I was happy that he got on board with a playtest of the WWII rules I've developed from Neil Thomas in "One-Hour Wargames".

The playtest session is here, along with good pics of the battle from his spiffy fone:

The thing that mattered most to me is that B-Ham was able to get into the tactics of the game quickly, worrying less about the mechanics. By the second game he showed a clear grasp of what he needed to do and wasn't distracted with lots of rules. As he noted, he was a bit rushed in the second game so tried something that would be quick - and it was, it just didn't bring victory.

My goal for the game design is to emphasize historical decisions and tactics for the gamer as company/battalion commander, while leaving how the sub-units execute them up to the dice except for movement [altho that is also diced, producing the temptation to rush forward with a plan or to delay a plan]. I think the next thing for me to try is scenarios with more infantry and more terrain. This will let me get into the close combat rules design a bit more!